Last semester in Rhetorical Criticism, I wrote my final paper on the misrepresentation of female musicians in popular music journalism, specifically in Portland's own Willamette Week. I'm really proud of the title: "Nymphs, Waifs, and Little Sisters: The Misrepresentation of Non-male Musicians in Male-centric Music Journalism." My thesis was that the national trend of sexist reporting on female musicians was also a problem in this local publication. It was a fun paper for me to write because I like to think of myself as a "wannabe music journalist," and I have personal stakes in local media.
Willamette Week is one of two alternative news weeklies in Portland, and has been in operation since 1974
I worked on the paper for maybe two months, collecting sources and culling through the past six months of Willamette Week. What I found was surprising to me, but supported my thesis: hardly any women at all write for the paper, and more often than not, the depictions of female musicians were sexist. I developed a whole framework for analyzing the representations, went well over the page limit, and eventually developed this paper into another paper for my final Feminist Theory project.
I did well on the paper and moved on with my life, though I still think about it quite a lot. Right after we got back from winter break, however, Kundai (my Rhetorical Criticism professor) emailed me to let me know that he had met Mark Zusman (the Editor-in-Chief of WW) and told him about my paper (!!!) and that this Zusman guy was interested in reading it (!!!!!!). O.M.G. Right? After some laborious copy-editing and fine tuning, I emailed my paper to Zusman and held my breath.
Last night, just two weeks after I sent the paper, I received a reply from WW Music Editor Matthew Singer. He was really nice about the whole thing... I think my paper sort of ruffled his feathers, but I do tend to be a little heavy-handed on assertions when I write. He allowed me how he was extremely interested in remedying the problem of not having enough female writers, and that my paper had brought something to his attention that he would really like to work on changing. Oh, and the best part--he wants to meet in person some time to talk about it!
The weird/cool thing is, Singer started following me on twitter maybe two or three weeks before I sent my paper to Willamette Week. And he is still following!
I'm looking forward to meeting with him and talking about feminism and music journalism, but I'm mostly excited that something I worked really hard on last semester got some real-world acknowledgement! It feels great to have people read my work and actually respond to it. In all the things I do--writing for the Pioneer Log, blogging on my music blog, blogging here, Tweeting, etc., it always feels most rewarding when something comes of it.
I encourage all of you to work hard on things you're passionate about--at the very least I will probably get a free coffee out of this. And, who knows, I'm a woman who likes to write about music and Singer implied he needed more of those... ;)
If you're interested in reading (any version of) my paper, let me know! It will also be part of the poster show at the Gender Studies Symposium coming up on March 13th.
In the age of social media, businesses have had to adapt to consumer behavior. They offer Groupons, send you offers via e-mail, and encourage you to "like" them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter to keep up with special offers. And it is pretty hilarious to become a fan of a restaurant on Facebook, because stuff like this happens:
But earlier this month some drama went down on the Applebee's FB page. Possibly more dramatic that the Alamo.
Journalist R.L. Stollar lays it out really well in a blog post he wrote as the restaurant chain slowly committed "Social Media Suicide" over the course of several hours. Basically, Applebee's fired an employee for breaking some sort of confidentiality policy by posting photo of a note a customer had written on a receipt on Facebook. The receipt said, "I give God 10%, why should you get 18%?" This really pissed the Internet off. Soon enough people took to Twitter and Facebook to berate Applebee's for their action.
Now, if I were a national corporation, I would delete the hateful comments and move on with my restauranteering. But no, for some reason Applebee's responded. In a post that could have mended broken bridges and appeased angered patrons, Applebee's made everything worse. They posted this status:
Unfortunately, not two weeks earlier, Applebee's THEMSELVES posted a photo of a note a customer left on a receipt. And if there is one thing that pisses off the Internet more than restaurants firing people, it is restaurants being hypocritical liars! Or so it seems.
The whole thing is re-hashed on Stollar's blog, and the next 48 hours proved extremely challenging for whoever is in charge of the Applebee's Facebook/Twitter, who is most likely fired by this point as well. Applebee's took to responding directly to patrons' posts and arguing with people all within a comment thread on Facebook. It is really painful to watch:
The debacle got me thinking about Walther's Social Information Processing Theory (SIPT). The four following thoughts correspond with the four caveats of the theory that we discussed in class on Monday:
Social goals exist in EMB: It is clear that through maintaining a Facebook and Twitter presence, Applebee's is attempting to create an identity for itself. By creating and ideally maintaining relationships with customers and patrons on Facebook, Applebee's is attempting to market themselves to a wider audience and increase interaction between customer and corporation. Even though people on Facebook can never know who "Applebee's" really is, or the team of people that handle social media for the establishment, they are able to converse with the restaurant, thus accomplishing the social goal of the restaurant.
There's nothing special about non-verbal: Luckily for Applebee's restaurants can't really use social cues, but their marketing team can. In the screenshot above, the Applebee's Facebook posted, "If you knew me or we were face to face you'd know how much I care." The phrase, "If you knew me" is slightly hostile. Offended Internet users have been using this phrase forever to create a confrontational situation. By pointing out the virtual wall between Applebee's and the customer who is commenting, Applebee's initiates an argument. The passive aggressive nature of the comment ("No one's asking me to comment at 5 am") alone acts as a social cue to the reader (thus why seeing that screenshot seems painful--or at least in me elicited a "oh no" reaction).
Lean media takes longer to accomplish things: As evidenced by the hour-long battle between Applebee's and the greater Internet, lean media clearly takes longer to convey a message. Over the course of a 200+ comment thread, Applebee's relates the same message to different costumers over and over before finally breaking down and attempting to apologize to users individually. The idea that lean media has to figure out how things are conveyed is obvious in this example. How can Applebee's tell the Internet how truly sad and sorry they are about making everyone so angry while still maintaining that they were justified in their decision to fire the waitress?
With time, EMC can be as effective as face-to-face: I think that is possible that Applebee's could have effectively conveyed a message about the situation before it devolved via EMC. For example, it probably would have been well-advised if they had deleted the photo they uploaded of a customer's receipt. They should not have allowed someone with the Facebook password to continue leaving passive-aggressive comments until past 5 in the morning. And they probably should have just posted one single, umbrella apology or statement about their action on their page itself as opposed to within a comment thread. And Applebee's did, after the initial chaos had blown over, delete the thread and post a blanket statement:
Unfortunate PR move for Applebee's? Yes. Hilarious? Absolutely. And certainly there is a lesson to be learned here about the power of social media and the precautions that should be taken when putting one's self out there.
It’s no secret that I have an embarrassing love for
reality TV. I tend to adore trashy shows in which 20-somethings are drunkenly
hanging out in hot tubs and punching each other in the face. I live vicariously
through these people as I slave away on readings and papers, thinking, “Where
in my life did I go so right that I
would never end up on this show?” (Because I definitely have the potential to survive a bar fight with someone
like JWoww.)
Nev Schulmann, Catfish host, and a literal catfish
But this fall, one reality show caught my eye, and not just for
the shock value. Catfish: The TV Showchronicles young women and men who have
“fallen in love” over the internet, but have never met face to face. And, more
often than not, have fallen for a big fat lie. Out of the ten episodes that
have aired thus far (the season finale is next Monday, Feb. 18), nine of the
lovers have been catfished (that is, misled about someone’s identity). As you
can imagine, these potential romances don’t end happily—especially not when
football-bro Tyler finds out that the “love of his life” Amanda is actually
Aaron. Or when Sunny, a sweet sorority sister expects hunky model Jamison to
propose to her and is instead greeted by Chelsea.
Matt & Kim
Not all the reveals are so dramatic—for example, in episode
three, Matt was afraid to show Kim current pictures of himself because he
currently weighs around 500 pounds. His Facebook featured photos of him from
high school when he was much slimmer. So he wasn’t really lying, right? Or Trina and Scorpio in episode two. Trina
thinks she’s meeting this hot exotic dancer named Scorpio. Really, she meets
Lee, a sweet man who is just way too shy to put himself out there.
The question remains: are these people lying? Sure, they are
using fake photos, sometimes even fake names, but they are still projecting
their personality. (Well, except for “Mike” who was really an evil witch named Mhissy who for some great reason I’m sure, spent two years of her life deceiving Jasmine.) And when the couples
meet, this sentiment shines through—“well I know I look different, but I’m
still me!”
I think most people’s reaction to this would be to say yes absolutely these people are lying. But…
isn’t every Facebook profile in some sense a lie? When you and your best
girlfriend decide it would be funny to be “Facebook married,” aren’t you lying?
My Facebook profile is just a glorified representation of
who I want people to think that I am.
For example, the last place I checked in was Tryon Creek Bar. I’ve only been
there once, and I was only there for maybe an hour, but I still checked
in—because I wanted people to know. I have tons of tagged photos and I’d say
that if you looked through them, you’d get a pretty good idea of what I look
like, but wouldn’t I still look different in person? What if I made my profile
picture a photo of Taylor Swift? To me, it seems obvious that no one would
believe that was me, but can we assume that everyone
would recognize that?
Maybe I’m reaching a bit, but I think people are far too
quick to draw assumptions about these catfishers. When you really think about it, we are all catfishers, standing around some
digital pond fishing for people we want to impress with our Internet presence.
In general, it seems that people are quick to denounce
online dating, stigmatizing it. But how many of you have OkCupid profiles?
Trust me, I know you do, because when I helped my housemate make one last
weekend I saw all of you on there.
Sure you “just have it, don’t use it” but it is still there. And when you
really think about it, haven’t we all “met someone” online? What’s more,
haven’t we all met someone “in real life” that we originally interacted with
online (I’m looking at you, people who took part in the pre-matriculationFacebook groups)?
As someone who has met three of my SO’s on the Internet, I’m
a huge proponent of online dating. I’m too straight up for all this, “does he
like me, will he be at the party?” crap.Online dating, for me, has allowed me to represent myself in a way that
I can control and I can filter the people that seem to be interested in me. A year
after deleting my OkCupid profile, I am still happily committed to someone I
met on that site. Neither of us lied, but maybe we’re a minority.
True life: I met Christian online and he was not a creepy stalker or serial murderer
Still, I wouldn’t blame the liars. Poor Matt, who wants to
date a 500-pound guy? In our society—no one, not even Kim. Poor Ja’Mari, he
only lied about his name because he was falsely accused of stealing a city bus
and didn’t want Rico to know. Sigh. You’ll find love someday guys.
I recommend Catfish:
The TV Show. Even though the hosts can get pretty annoying and sometimes
you just want to yell at the people because how
could you be so dumb, it makes
you think.
Being in Interpersonal Media class has made me a bit self-conscious of what I do online. While this doesn't help the constant state of stress that I seem to be enveloped in, I think certain level of self-awareness is necessary in order to develop your "online self." Over the summer, many of the editors from The Portland Mercury began following me on Twitter. I found myself editing my tweets and thinking about them much more before I posted because of this. At first, it was a drag--I mean my Twitter is supposed to be an expression of ME! But as time wore on and I continued to amass "professional" followers, I found that my Twitter profile had become something that I could take pride in--something that I have now included on my résumé.
My Twitter profile
Facebook is a bit different. While it is still an extension of myself, I find it to be much more personal. I'm friends with people from elementary school, summer camp, college, etc. and find that the things I post are mostly to keep people in touch with what I'm interested in. And while I prefer having serious personal or professional conversations face-to-face, I do appreciate Facebook's quick way of sending a message in black-and-white. This week, however, I ran into a problem.
My friend Anna and I had been talking about Sasquatch Music Festival that happens every May in the Gorge. I've been wanting to go for a long time and the festival just happens to start on my 21st birthday this year. The lineup is great, and it seems like it will be really fun, but I just can't swing spending $400 on a single weekend (before food, beer, gas, etc). So, when one of my favorite artists announced a show in Portland that same weekend, I bought the $15 ticket and told myself that Sasquatch would have to wait.
I knew Anna would be upset that I was flaking on our plan, and as I completed my purchase, I thought about ways to tell her. Before I knew it, technology had taken away my ability to control my message--in order to buy the ticket, I had to publish my purchase on Facebook! A few minutes later, Anna commented, "this is the same weekend as Sasquatch."
I felt bad. Why did Facebook get to tell the world something that was mine to tell? Usually I LOVE using technology to send messages or boast about cool stuff I'm doing, but this irked me. I apologized (via text message) to Anna, and the whole thing blew over pretty easily. Still, the control that was taken from me by this transaction struck was off-putting. Usually I'm the one creating the image of what I do online--it isn't up to the things I buy.
This, along with a comment by someone in class last Friday, got me thinking about consumerism on Facebook. We are encouraged to "like" pages of corporations we like, stores we shop at, restaurants we like, etc. These pages are to be consumed. They offer deals for people who "like" them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. And subsequently, our friends are able to see that we support these places. We "check in" to restaurants and everyone knows we are there. What is the benefit of this display of consumption? Of wealth? In my case, I didn't want people to know I was going to see Father John Misty in May (not via Facebook), and yet there it was, "Zibby Pillote has bought tickets to see..."
As class progresses, I look forward to thinking more about the ways in which the things we buy reflect on us personally. What is the effect of broadcasting our purchases on Facebook? Have you ever experienced this, or been embarrassed about something that was automatically posted for you?
